Member Article

Personal Insolvencies continue to fall

The number of personal insolvencies in England and Wales in the last quarter has fallen by 11% on the same period in 2010.

In Q3 30,219 people entered bankruptcy, Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) or took advantage of the Government Debt Relief Orders (GDROs), a marked decrease from 33, 935 in 2010.

Bankruptcies saw a marked decrease, falling by 31.2%. Pat Boyden, partner and personal insolvency expert at PwC commented: “The big story is the massive fall in bankruptcies.

“This is the lowest quarterly figure since 2004 when we saw just under 9,000 people entering bankruptcy.”

However, IVAs and GDROs rose by 0.7% and 7.6% respectively.

Pat Boyden believes that personal insolvency figures will now continue to fall.

She added: “Consumers do not have the credit card and personal loan debt that they had five years ago - they have not been able to take on any more debt, partly because of the fall in new lending from banks and credit companies and partly because times are hard.


–Although consumers are still trying to deal with the debts they have, as their debt reduces, their main struggle will be to meet their basic living costs, for example paying high rents, fuel and council tax bills and food costs.“

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .